By the end of his time in Bloomington, former Indiana coach Bob Knight had essentially self-destructed. His reputation for being abusive, particularly at the end with the Neil Reed incident that came to light in 2000, overshadowed his coaching brilliance.
His volatility was nothing new. Reportedly when Johnny Dawkins was being was recruited by Mike Krzyzewski, who played for Knight at Army, he made it clear to the young Duke coach that he had no interest in being treated the way Knight treated his players.
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This 60 Minutes piece from 1980, when Dawkins was a young high schooler, looks at Knight’s good and bad points but obviously he puts his best foot forward.
Really the shame of it is that there were so many good qualities to the man. He had brilliant insights into the game. He was rigidly honest and demanded that his players work hard on the court and in the classroom. He cared about his kids and when guys like Krzyzewski or Landon Turner faced great personal tragedies, Knight put the mind games aside and stood by them like no one else.
Yet as we see in this video, the basic dynamic that destroyed his career turn up: his ego overshadows everything and he demands great discipline from everyone but himself. Knight was a brilliant man and in basketball terms, a prodigy, a genius. One of the great losses the game has ever suffered was his inability to sublimate himself to the greater good of the team. Think what he could have accomplished if he had had more self-control.
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